


Death is only the beginning

by Kira7



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Mummy (1999)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Crossover, Egyptology, F/M, Historical Inaccuracy, I don't know what I'm doing, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Beta Read, Or is it an AU?, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Please Don't Hate Me, Slow To Update, The Author Regrets Everything, the crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26517985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira7/pseuds/Kira7
Summary: An old mummy is ready to have their revenge, be careful, they are behind you! They are hiding in the shadows, following their target, the right person to sacrifice for their beloved Anck-su-Namun."For the last time, Crowley, I don't want to follow you.""And for the last time, Mr. Read-a-Book-isn't-dangerous, you have, or I'll force you to.""Oh, I'm curious how you would do it.""I have my methods, angel."
Relationships: Anathema Device & Newton Pulsifer, Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Anck Su Namun/Imhotep, Aziraphale & Madame Tracy (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens) & Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device, Crowley & Sergeant Shadwell (Good Omens), Sergeant Shadwell/Madame Tracy (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

_Thebes, City of the Living. Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti I. Home of Imhotep, Pharaoh's high priest, keeper of the dead; birthplace of Anck-Su-Namun, Pharaoh's mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her. But for their love, they were willing to risk life itself. To resurrect Anck-Su-Namun, Imhotep and his priests broke into her crypt and stole her body. They raced deep into the desert, taking Anck-Su-Namun's corpse to Hammunaptra, City of the Dead, ancient burial site for the sons of pharaohs, and resting place for the wealth of Egypt. For his love, Imhotep dared the gods' anger by going deep into the city, where he took the black Book of the Dead from its holy resting place._

_Anck-Su-Namun's soul had been sent to the dark Underworld, her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars._  
_Anck-Su-Namun's soul had come back from the dead. But Pharaoh's bodyguards had followed Imhotep, and stopped him before the ritual could be completed. Imhotep's priests were condemned to be mummified alive. As for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the Hom Dai, the worst of all ancient curses. One so horrible it had never before been bestowed. He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all eternity. The Medjai would never allow him to be released. For he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater with the strength of the ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility._  
_For 3,000 years men and armies fought over this city not knowing what evil lay beneath it; and for 3,000 years we, the Medjai, the descendants of Pharaoh's sacred bodyguards, kept watch._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tfw you discover, only today, that Evelyn talked about Bembridge and not Cambridge 😱😱😱

London, 1924

In Soho neighborhood they had told him there was a bookshop, an old, almost ancient one, which came into the possession of a man in his fifties, as kind and willing to help, as aggressive and a beast when someone wanted to buy a book. The locals had told him that this man was an expert on the subject and surely he would have been able to give a concrete answer to his question; it was rumored that he had applied to work at Bembridge many years earlier, but the response he received many months later was negative.  
Despite this, he was once again reassured: if he didn't want to wait decades for an answer and wanted an expert's answer, the owner of A. Z. Fell & Co. was the best around.

A little bell rang as someone had entered. The new guest, a middle-class boy, judging by his clothes, looked for this man. The boy took a few hesitant steps, looking around to find out where the owner was hiding, no one had told him that he was a type who liked to hide.

"Can I help you, young man?"

A female voice caught his attention, and the boy, at the sight of an elderly red-haired woman with brightly colored feathers stuck to her, made a short bow to greet her.

"Good morning, Madam, I wanted to ask you a question."

The woman smiled mischievously, resting her chin on the back of one hand, "Unfortunately, this evening Madame Tracy has no chance of being able to spend a jolly night with you, my dear, maybe next week I can find a moment," she offered with a wink.

The boy bowed his head and only after clearing his throat he spoke again, "No. You see, Madam--"

"Please, call me Madame Tracy."

"Madame Tracy, Madam, I was looking for the bookshop's owner."

"Oh," the woman's expression changed considerably, she studied the boy's features for a moment, then she smiled. "I'm going to call him, sweetheart. Who should I say is waiting for him?"

"Pulsifer, Madame, Newton Pulsifer."

Madame Tracy, after a half pirouette, went to a corner hidden from the eyes of the boy, who tried to follow her with his eyes as much as possible, but as soon as she disappeared Newton stood still, waiting for her, and the owner of this bookshop.

* * *

Madame Tracy passed without any effort some piles of books placed on the floor, she was now accustomed to the oddities of the owner. When she reached an armchair where the owner used to sit, the woman waited for the right moment to make him aware of the presence of a guest, a probable customer.

The man, wearing his spettacles, was sitting on the armchair, intent on reading a book, one of those that he should have sold, instead it remained in the back room, along with most of the other books, away from prying and not very reassuring eyes; Madame Tracy saw the man closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and brought his head back to lean it back in the chair, a gesture that the man usually made to recover from reading a paragraph as perfect as it was wonderful, that was the right time to talk.

"There's a young man waiting for you, Mr. Fell."

The man took off his glasses, closed the book and rubbed his eyes, he desperately needed to recover from reading. "We're friends now, Tracy, I don't like being called by my last name. It makes me feel older than I really am."

"I can't show that there is a certain friendship between us, Aziraphale, people might start talking. And I wouldn't want to find myself on papers with the headline ' _Madame Tracy is no longer in the Brigt Young People_ ', that would be a real scandal."

Aziraphale laughed, giving her a knowing look, "And I don't want to be the cause of this tragedy, in any way. Did he tell you his name?"

"Newton Pulsifer. He doesn't have a familiar face, I've never seen him, I think he's not from London."

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"Apart from wanting to talk to you, no. He's a handsome young man, he has an innocent and immaculate look, but I'm sure you'll like it."

As he got up from his armchair, Aziraphale gave her a reproachful look, he loved talking to the woman, but he preferred certain topics to be treated in private, away from ears that could report to the authorities.

"I'm going to see what he wants," he replied, heading for the door that divided the back room from the bookshop, ready to send him away if this boy was willing to buy any of his books.

* * *

A couple of minutes after Madame Tracy disappeared, Newton saw a robust man with blond, almost white hair, dressed in an old, long and beige jacket and a waistcoat, who was politely smiling at him.

"Good morning, Mr. Pulsifer, Madame Tracy told me you wanted to talk to me."

"Good morning, are you Mr. Fell?"

The man put his hand on a wooden surface, "I suppose so, and you? Are you a reporter?"

Newton shook his head, "Not at all, I just came to ask you a question, they told me that you are the best."

Aziraphale sighed, feared what would happen in a few moments, but nodded, " _Vox populi, vox Dei_ , they said. Please, ask me your question."

It was at that moment that Newton reached into a pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a circular black object and handed it to Mr. Fell, "They told me if I wanted a full answer I had to go to you."

Aziraphale frowned, taken by surprise, and approached the boy, gently taking the object in his hands, "What is it?"

"I was hoping for an explanation from you, my uncle returned from Egypt with that."

Aziraphale Fell, a great scholar of ancient peoples, and an expert Egyptologist, now retired to a quiet life, began to notice numerous carvings along the object, made of black stone, then he turned around and headed back to the back room with quick steps.

"Back already, dear?" Madame Tracy's voice was heard from the bookshop.

"The curse of getting old is having to use a pair of glasses to read small things," replied Mr. Fell's voice.

Newton, not expecting such a reaction, didn't know what to do at first; he felt hesitant to follow Mr. Fell, unsure if it was a good idea to do so. After all, that man hadn't said anything to him, but the boy wanted to know what was that thing, and it was only curiosity that made him take the necessary steps to reach the back room, finding Madame Tracy, who gave him a flirtatious wink, and Mr. Fell with reading glasses intent on better observing the object that Newton had given him in the sunlight, the few details were quite recognizable.

"Look here," Aziraphale muttered to himself, frowning as he looked at the engraving.

"They're hieroglyphs, aren't they?"

"Cursive hieroglyphs, to be precise, my boy," he replied, reading the figure of an owl, a loaf of bread and underneath an inclined stick with two ends on the right and lower part, " _M_ and _T_... Mh... Who's your uncle , boy?," he asked without taking his eyes off the object.

"Thou-Shalt-Not, Commit. Adultery... Pulsifer?"

Much to his surprise, Newton didn't notice in Mr. Fell the same scornful look that other people usually did when they listened like his uncle wanted to be called. Instead, the man didn't seem to notice that strange name, only Madame Tracy exclaimed a "Rather bizarre name", but it was devoid of malice that Newton was very grateful to her.

"Did he tell you where he found it?," asked Mr. Fell.

"He said a longtime friend gave it to him. He talked about magical artifacts, witchcraft, he wanted to destroy it, but I set out to find information about it. So, here I am."

Mr. Fell lowered the object and looked at him, his eyebrows were furrowed.

"Did you ask the Bembridge scholars for help too?"

Newton denied, "No Sir."

"Well, you should have. There, you will find all the answers you are looking for, you know... Only the best work there. And I'm not up to them," he concluded with a smile.

"Oh come on, Aziraphale," Madame Tracy interjected, "Do I have to remind you how many rude words you addressed to those scholars, after receiving their negative response?"

Aziraphale stiffened and his cheeks flushed with shame as he tried miserably to get the woman back, "Th-this doesn't... These aren't things to say, Tracy."

"They told me you would give me an answer, which they wouldn't do, at Bembridge."

"I believe they wouldn't have done it, Mr. Pulsifer," Aziraphale looked back at the young man, serious, "Most of these artifacts are just fakes, they would have thrown it away as soon as they received it, not realizing that from a small object one could discover great things."

"You, on the other hand, won't do that... Right?"

Aziraphale smiled at Newton's naive question, "My boy, as you can see I'm someone who keeps a lot of things in this bookshop."

"What about the object? What can you tell me?"

Aziraphale sighed, young people today weren't very patient, "The only thing I can tell you is that it's an object that was probably used to store something, like jewels or ointments. The inscription is strange, an owl is for _M_ , while bread is for _T_. Usually, ancient Egyptians didn't use to write vowels, despite this, the word is very clear. An em and a ti together mean _to die_. Probably, it was used during mummification, but nowadays it wouldn't be used so much."

Aziraphale tried to open the object, in fact there was a small knob in the center of one of its two faces, but he found some difficulty in the operation; he then tried to unscrew it, but even so he didn't get any results.

"Do you need help, dear?," Madame Tracy asked.

"I-I think... It's stuck. Let's see if so--" he tried to press the knob for a second, hoping to tilt the cap slightly, but he felt in the other hand, with which he was holding that object, a sensation of several punches pressing outward on his palm, and the slight sound of a mechanism was heard by those present.

Aziraphale immediately turned the object upside down as Madame Tracy and Newton approached to see what had happened. The punches that Aziraphale had felt were none other than the points of six triangles that had kept a sheet of papyrus closed inside the object, a little worn on the sides.

"I don't think this is the jewelry box you mentioned earlier, Aziraphale."

"No, I'm afraid not, Tracy."

"What are you waiting for, take the paper and let's see what it says."

It was Newton who took the paper, as Aziraphale was intent on glancing at Tracy, and opening it, noting to the other two what was marked on it.

"A map?"

"For Hamunaptra?"

"What would that be?," Newton asked and it was Tracy who answered him.

"Hamunaptra is the City of the Dead, a place where all the pharaohs, their wives and the most important people of Ancient Egypt were buried, do I remember well Aziraphale?," she turned to the man with an expectant look.

"Right, my dear, but... But Hamunaptra should be just a legend. I mean, it's not marked on any map. Nobody ever mentioned it, not even the Bembridge people."

"So you say it's just a false?"

"No.", "Yes.", Tracy and Aziraphale replied at the same time, confusing Newton even more.

"Tracy, why would anyone believe a map? You know all the scouts who died in search of this city?"

"They weren't good enough."

"Maybe it's because Hamunaptra doesn't exist?"

"Or maybe it's because they didn't have a map? Mh?"

Shocked, Aziraphale took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks and then shook his head, snorting in annoyance, "This is ridiculous, this is absolutely ridiculous. Mr. Pulsifer?," he turned to the young man handing the item back with a smile, "You were very kind for showing me this piece of ancient value."

"But I--" Newton tried to say without success because Mr. Fell was pushing him towards the entrance.

"As you can see, it's late, and I absolutely have to close. I'm sure your uncle will be pleased to know that this is not a magical, doomed object. So sleep easy, and have a good evening."

Newton turned just in time to see the door slam in his face; he bowed his head and disconsolately went in search of some hotel to spend the night. He wasn't a man who believed in these things, but when he saw those hieroglyphs, it occurred to him to go find someone who could help him understand what that strange object was and maybe give it an approximate value. In those years, many people had become interested in Egypt, its mysteries, and those people were looking for exotic objects to show to their guests, even inventing adventures to make them special. The idea of having something important in his hands had given him the hope of being able to heal his family's financial situation, however judging by Mr. Fell's answer, that object was just a simple container of ointment, and the map contained within led to a place that did not exist at all.

* * *

"You haven't been very nice to him."

Aziraphale, observing the red wine inside his glass, sighed and took a sip of that liqueur, savoring its intense and sweet taste more than necessary.

"Did you see the look he gave you as you chased him away? Shattered and disconsolate. I didn't expect that from you."

The man ran a hand over his face, "And what was I supposed to do? Encourage him to follow a chimera? I wouldn't want a young man with good manners to be ruined for... A map."

"What if maybe it isn't so?"

Aziraphale decided to get up from the armchair, took a slow walk around the room under the lively gaze of the woman, he stopped just to read the titles of some books that he preferred to keep in the room used as an office, away from too critical eyes. Eyes that in no way belonged to Tracy, however.

The woman used to keep Mr. Fell company; she had never married, she had spent her whole life in London with her own particular activities, which were decidedly frowned upon by London society, especially that portion that attended church. But Aziraphale, although he belonged to the latter category, was very particular and both of them had established an excellent friendship, even if they were about twenty years apart, based on mutual respect and not getting too involved in other people's affairs.

Initially Aziraphale had heard the woman's curious gaze repeatedly looking for answers, mainly about why a handsome and wealthy man like him had never married, but when she understood the reason behind this decision, Tracy did not allow herself to judge him, or to call police, and so did he when he found out what business Tracy was doing. From a simple friendship it had then become a relationship similar to aunt and nephew and this involved some more freedom.

"I don't want to feel responsible for a boy's death."

"What if you guide him?"

"What?"

Tracy got up from her chair to join him, massaged his shoulders for a few seconds and started talking, "Just think about it... Young Mr. Fell--"

"I want to remind you I'm fifty," he corrected her smiling, tilting his head slightly to look at her.

"For one who is seventy-two, you are still a lad."

Her response made Aziraphale laugh heartily and the woman took advantage of it to continue her speech.

" _Young Mr. Fell, an expert Egyptologist, the one who was not accepted by the Bembridge scholars, has discovered the mythical lost city of Hamunaptra_. It would be interesting as a newspaper headline."

"What makes you think I would follow him?!"

Aziraphale had pulled away from Tracy's touch, looking upset, but Tracy wasn't intimidated by his gaze, on the contrary, she smiled mischievously and knowingly.

"Let me guess... Your desire of knowledge?"

Aziraphale squeezed the goblet a little tighter, his eyelids trembled and he felt his heart beating perfectly against his chest, yet his head was full of insecurities, of doubts...

"Tracy, I don't think that's a good idea," he said as he bowed his head.

The woman gave him a maternal gaze and again placed one hand on his shoulder and the other on the man's cheek, enticing him to be looked at.

"Listen to me, Aziraphale, you are a fantastic man, intelligent and resourceful. You cannot be influenced by a negative judgment given to you by people who don't know you. You cannot hide in here, you have to go out with your head held high and show who you are, without getting arrested, of course. And if helping this boy can be the solution, then why not take advantage of it? Mh?," she squeezed his shoulder in an attempt to give him courage.

"I had already traveled, I had visited Paris, Rome..."

"Yes, but Egypt is not the same, at least so my clients have said."

Aziraphale looked around him, seeing all those books without a keeper for months... Maybe forever... The thought of him made him panic and the man was forced to put down the goblet before grabbing the woman's shoulders.

"Tracy, promise me you'll take care of my books."

It was at that moment that Tracy laughed heartily, "My joy, do you think I am staying here? London is wonderful, but I have never visited Egypt."

The man's expression frowned, starting to get suspicious, "Aren't you convincing me to go there so you can visit Egypt?"

Tracy smiled almost guilty and blinked a couple of times, "Imagine if you were to find Hamunaptra. Imagine the blow you would give to those Bembridge folks."

Aziraphale closed his eyes for a second and thought about it, he really thought about it: the journey, the luggage, deciphering the map and carrying many books on the subject, any source could be needed, they had to find young Pulsifer, then to find someone from the place, someone who knew those sand dunes well, someone who could defend them, buy horses, camels, organize the trip, think of someone to leave the bookshol for... Then, his mind began to fancy, and a little smile appeared on the lips: the possibility of really finding Hamunaptra, the much vaunted great treasures, the various mummies of the pharaohs, millions of years of history ready to be rediscovered...

"Hamunaptra, Aziraphale. Egypt."

"I don't want to be famous."

"And you won't be if that's what you want, just a little revenge on those bigots."

"Hamunaptra..."

"Yes."

"We need to find Pulsifer as soon as possible."

Tracy stepped away from Aziraphale's embrace, heading for the phone, a little devilish thing Aziraphale had but had never used it, too fond of paper and letter ink.

"Leave it to me, dear, I'll try to find him as soon as possible."

And that was when Aziraphale really smiled, excited. The city of the dead, his childhood dream was becoming reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! 👋🏻😄
> 
> If you are here, thank you very much, and I also thank you for your patience.  
> I have a little doubt, a problem, with this story, regarding Anathema: I had in mind to make her Egyptian and, even more, to make her belong to Medjai... But I don't know if doing so would do a huge wrong to Egyptian culture, or even to American culture, given the character's origins.  
> I already have an idea in mind how to behave on this, but I'd like to read your opinion about it.
> 
> This message will be present in both the Italian and English versions of the story; will what you say affect the story? Very likely.  
> If you don't want your opinion to appear in the comments, you can just send me a private message, no problem with that 😄
> 
> The application will be valid until the next update, if everything goes well it will be July (although, personally, I hope a little earlier, around June). Thanks for your attention, and thank you if you want to give me some advice.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to scream with me, you can find me on [ **Tumblr** ](https://kira-7.tumblr.com) or [ **Twitter** ](https://mobile.twitter.com/kira7_13) 😄


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